Here is to a quarter century of US military havoc

The twelvemonth 2025 has travel to an end, and on with it, the archetypal 4th of the 21st century. Reflecting connected the people of the past 25 years, it is hard to understate the grade to which planetary events person been shaped by the subject excesses of the United States – not that the aforesaid cannot beryllium said for the 20th century, too.

Shortly aft the caller period kicked off, the US launched the alleged “global warfare connected terror” nether the enlightened guidance of President George W Bush, who offered the nonrecreational telephone to arms pursuing the 9/11 attacks of 2001: “We person our marching orders. My chap Americans, let’s roll.”

According to Bush, the US had undertaken to “wage a warfare to prevention civilisation itself”, which yet entailed pulverising assorted parts of the satellite and sidesplitting millions of people.

On September 11, 2001, I was enrolled arsenic a inferior astatine Columbia University successful New York City, the tract of the World Trade Center attacks. However, arsenic I was scheduled to survey successful Italy that fall, I was not successful New York astatine the clip but alternatively successful Austin, Texas, wherever my household past resided.

I spent the time astatine the bureau wherever I had been employed for the summer, watching apocalyptic replays of the incoming planes connected a ample projector surface acceptable up by my colleagues specifically for that purpose.

Outside, American flags began to proliferate crossed each disposable surface, arsenic the state went astir appointing itself the fig 1 unfortunate of coercion successful the past of the satellite – and ne'er caput the rather literal panic the US had been inflicting connected different nations for decades, from Vietnam and Laos to Nicaragua and Panama.

That evening, I visited my boyfriend, whose 3 housemates were morosely gorging themselves connected the surviving country level amid copious buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which, they explained to me, was “comfort food” meant to assistance assuage the symptom of nationalist tragedy.

Suffice it to accidental that, for the countless civilians soon to beryllium connected the receiving extremity of US bombs, monolithic fast-food takeaway orders mostly were not an disposable antidote.

From Austin I flew to Rome via New York, wherever I watched connected Italian tv arsenic my state went astir “saving civilisation itself” by bombing the daylights retired of Afghanistan. This workout successful wide slaughter paved the mode for the Iraq War successful 2003, a federation already good acquainted with the phenomenon; by 1996, it was estimated that half a million Iraqi children had perished connected relationship of US sanctions.

In a uncommon and presumably unintended infinitesimal of lucidity, Bush would remark: “You know, 1 of the hardest parts of my occupation is to link Iraq to the warfare connected terror.”

And portion commander-in-chief Bush whitethorn person yet been amended known for his grammatical incompetence than for his quality to onslaught existential fearfulness into the hearts of Americans, helium was flanked by other, much formidable creatures specified arsenic the recently departed Dick Cheney – aka “the Darth Vader of the administration” and Bush’s vice president – who were acold much superior astir manufacturing threats to warrant warfare forevermore.

Bush was succeeded arsenic person of the planetary superpower by premature Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama, who, successful his last twelvemonth successful bureau alone, managed to driblet nary less than 26,172 bombs connected 7 antithetic countries.

One of these countries was Yemen, wherever Obama’s amerciable drone strikes had made a sanction for themselves, sidesplitting Yemeni wedding attendees. When Donald Trump took implicit from Obama successful 2017, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported much US strikes connected Yemen successful the archetypal 100 days of his presidency than successful the erstwhile 2 years combined – with Trump changing up the rules to let the subject to “authorise strikes without moving them done the White House information bureaucracy first”.

Joe Biden, who served arsenic president successful betwixt the 2 Trump administrations, distinguished his clip successful bureau by expanding Washington’s traditionally egregious enactment for Israeli massacres of Palestinians to underwrite an all-out genocide successful the Gaza Strip with the assistance of billions of dollars successful US payer money.

Israel, which jumped connected the full “war connected terror” bandwagon from the post-9/11 get-go, present continues to slaughter Palestinians near and close successful Gaza nether the guise of a Trump-brokered ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Trump’s resumption of power implicit imperial “counterterror” operations has been characterised by adjacent little restraint this clip around, arsenic his recently rebranded Department of War goes astir blowing up boats willy-nilly disconnected the seashore of Venezuela and extrajudicially murdering the folks connected board.

Whereas during the aged Bush-Cheney days the US astatine slightest acrophobic itself with presenting a semi-coherent communicative to warrant aggression abroad, Trump tin hardly beryllium bothered to discarded excessively overmuch clip constructing a veneer of legality, preferring alternatively to randomly fling astir absurd allegations of Venezuelan “narcoterrorism” and lipid “theft”.

Now, US subject mightiness is becoming progressively harnessed to the whims of a antheral whose spontaneous and haphazard bombing of Iran, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere mimics his pathological stream-of-consciousness benignant of discourse.

And arsenic we embark connected the 2nd 4th of a 21st period that is already defined by the catastrophic bequest of US militarism, 1 cannot assistance but callback those unfortunate “marching orders” that started it all: “My chap Americans, let’s roll.”

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.